Spectators lined Canyon Lake Drive at a recent parade to cheer on the Fire Engine assigned to the Station 60 in Canyon Lake. The fire department’s trucks will soon be under the direction of the new City of Canyon Lake Fire Department, which will begin operations the first of next year.
City fire hire getting close
With the City of Canyon Lake approving the formation of its own municipal fire department, the year 2021 is going to be a busy and critical year. There is so much to do to be ready for the city takeover the first of 2022. Nothing, perhaps, is more critical than hiring the right person to head up this implementation. The city is getting close to making a decision on who that will be.
The selection process for the Canyon Lake Fire Department Start-Up Consultant/Interim Fire Chief is going quite well, City Manager Chris Mann said. From the 38 applications the city received, the top six candidates whose backgrounds and experience most closely matched the needs of the city were invited to interview in front of a seven-member panel, he said.
The panel consisted of Chris, the Assistant City Managers from the cities of Lake Elsinore and Wildomar, the Assistant County Executive Officer for Public Safety, the Fire Chief for the City of Murrieta and the two members of the Canyon Lake City Council who serve on the Fire Ad Hoc Committee.
Interviews were held last Thursday (Jan. 7) and the interview panel narrowed the list of candidates down to the top two.
“We are now in the process of further evaluating those two candidates, including one-on-one interviews with me and reference checks,” Chris said. “We anticipate being in a position to publicly announce the chosen individual within a couple of weeks.”
This person will begin the task in early February of creating the fire department and will be eligible for applying for the permanent Fire Chief job when the department is up and running on Jan. 1, 2022.
With the Interim Fire Chief in place next month, he or she will have approximately 11 months to establish the new fire department. The new hire will work under the administrative direction of the city manager and will develop and oversee the startup and operations of the new single-station fire department.
Tasks of the Interim Fire Chief will include establishing fire department policies and procedures, training, EMS implementation and purchasing or leasing of vehicles and equipment among other tasks.
Until the City of Canyon Lake Fire Department is officially on its own, the fire and emergency services will continue to be provided by the Riverside County Fire and Cal Fire, with which the city has a contract.